Build Your Own Low-Power Transmitters: Projects for the Electronics Experimenter

Rating:
Summary: Learning and building transmitters / rec (FM, AM, Video, RC)
Review: Great book! It is the backbone of transmitting and receiving. If you want to learn how to build or how transmitters and receivers work get this book!! The only thing I don't like is the designs are not that up to date, but you need to know them to build better transmitters / receivers. This is a great book for getting into RF. The best part is you can build everything!!

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointing Book
Review: This is a very disappointing book. The preface promises "All projects use standard parts and have been thoroughly tested, with PC board layouts given for most the projects, as well as parts lists, coil data, and complete setup information." However, the only time it delivers all this information is when the transmitter in question is a kit from a certain vendor in New York State. For everything else, the information supplied is minimal at best.

For instance, Chapter 16 (Low-Power Narrowband FM Transmitters) provides a schematic for a ¼ watt amateur 2 meter FM transmitter that completely omits data on all coils, inductors, etc. in the design. There's no parts list, no PC board layout, and minimal description of the circuit. The chapter goes on to describe a UHF transmitter based on an obsolete integrated circuit.

Now I can't fault the authors for including a design based on an obsolete chip. The chip was probably in full production when this chapter was written. However, omitting the coil data for the 2 meter transmitter is unacceptable.

Chapters describing the various transmitter kits are chock full of information. There's also some interesting chapters on FM stereo generation and serial data remote control. However, on a whole, the book leaves out a lot of detail on the transmitters I bought it for. I would have been better off looking for a suitable ARRL publication.